More than just metallic bikinis

Barbara Postema’s room is filled with books. Although many may expect seeing books by Shakespeare or Chaucer on the shelves of an English teacher at the Faculty of Arts, they are actually stacked with comics, strip cartoons, and graphic novels such as Fun Home, Persepolis, and Watchmen. Classics too, but within the world of comics. Postema is a scholar in comics studies and she would be delighted to see both society and academia finally appreciate these books. Because comics are about more than just Gauls, Smurfs, and superheroes. In the run-up to International Women's Day, she argues that comics are certainly not just a ‘boy thing’.

_{Text: Marrit Wouda, Corporate Communication / Photos: Henk Veenstra} 

For the school reading list

Not many pupils are allowed to read a graphic novel for the school reading list, which is quite a shame, Postema believes. ‘You might think: it’s just pictures, there’s nothing to understand about them. But that just simply isn’t true! There is less writing in a comic, but you still have to bring the story to life yourself, in your own imagination.’ In fact, precisely because there are fewer words, reading comics is an active form of reading: they are made up of individual pictures, and not all the details are drawn or explained. ‘You have to piece them together, connect the dots, and interpret visual communication. It develops a completely different kind of reading skills, which is really incredibly useful,’ says Postema. But unfortunately: ‘Although comics are popular, they are still mainly seen as something to read, not literature.’

Not just funny

‘I suppose, by now, we all know that comics are not about just being funny all the time. Just like novels and films, comics can convey complex, multi-layered stories,’ Postema explains. ‘But in comics, this is done differently.’ In fact, dramatic, serious stories in particular can be told well in comics. Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, which tells the story of the Holocaust, is a perfect example of this, according to Postema. Not only because of the visual metaphor Spiegelman uses — Jews are represented as mice, Nazis as cats — but also because the terrible events that took place in death camps are drawn. ‘In a live-action film, something like that would be too graphic, but when drawn, you are able to create some distance.’

It’s a man’s world

Apart from the fact that we still do not really appreciate the value of comics, they also still are very much part of a man’s world. Superhero comics, in particular, are largely created and read by men and boys. The idea behind it is that girls don’t read that, do they? Nonsense, according to Postema: ‘There is plenty of evidence that girls are also interested in  comics, including superhero comics, and that was already the case in the early days of DC and Marvel.’ According to Postema, girls tend to give up because those comics in particular are made to be as attractive as possible to boys and men. Over time, comic producers have increasingly focused their work on boys and men, which is why, according to Postema, we tend to look at all comics — not just those about superheroes — as a ‘boy thing’. ‘Apart from that being a sexist view, it is also a missed opportunity: this way, you are simply ignoring about half of your potential market!’

The ‘brokeback’ pose and metallic bikinis

Because of this ‘male gaze’, the role of female characters is almost always reduced to being treated as an object of sexual desire. Even when they are the lead, it is mostly mainly about their looks. ‘Preferably with a beautiful body revealing as much as possible,’ says Postema — to which one may occasionally object that men, on the other hand, look ridiculous. ‘And that’s true, no one has muscles on top of their muscles!’ she laughs. That too, is a kind of caricature, but one that radiates strength, whereas the caricature of women — who should be powerfull within such a story — is just about being sexy.’

To give an illustration of this, she shows two collages. One of them shows women drawn by women: they depict a variety of images of women in a myriad of settings. A second collage shows women from superhero comic books, drawn by men. It is a stark contrast: women dressed in metallic bikinis or extremely tight suits, in uncomfortable-looking poses that clearly show both breasts and buttocks. ‘That is also referred to as a “brokeback”, because you’d almost have to break your spine to be able to strike such at pose,’ Postema adds, with a grimace.

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Women in fridges

Then there is also the embarrassing phenomenon of ‘fridging’. This refers to a Green Lantern comic where the male protagonist finds his murdered girlfriend in a refrigerator. Comics fan, and later Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone, started a website — Women in Refrigerators — to keep track of all the suffering that women in comics were subjected to. And there was lot, as it turned out. Sexual assault, kidnapping, torture, and murder: female characters mainly serve as victims to encourage male characters to take action. And when women themselves play the central role, much of the same often happens to them to motivate them. Apparently, men don’t need this kind of “motivation”,’ says Postema. ‘It’s not very surprising that girls tend to feel unwelcome, both as readers and creators.’

For everyone

Fortunately, Postema does start to notice changes in the world of comics due to criticism from readers and creators alike. For a very long time, the jury of the ‘Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême’ — a prestigious comics award — believed that there were ‘simply’ no women eligible for the shortlist, let alone the prize. In 2016, 12 of the 30 nominees withdrew in protest because the shortlist was exclusively male. Not very long after that, six women were added to the list. ‘Ever since, more women have been on the shortlist and even won,’ Postema says. That helps, she reckons. ‘Female comic book creators have become increasingly visible, and that inspires other women too.’

It is nice that more stories are being told for and about women, but we should avoid viewing them as ‘being comics by and for women’. ‘They are also just stories for everyone,’ says Postema. ‘Aimée de Jongh who created Days of Sand and a comic book version of Lord of the Flies is a great example of that.’ Postema hopes that this progress will continue, so that in a while we can really look at comics with different eyes: a unique and valuable narrative form, for everyone.

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• Barbara Postema